Castlebrae Primary Cluster

In October 2003, the Modern Languages Department in Castlebrae and teachers in our cluster primary schools (Castleview, Niddrie Mill and Newcraighall Primary schools) decided to build a new curriculum for Modern Languages, facilitating the transition from Primary to Secondary school.

It was an enormous task the five of us worked very hard on, but it was very productive and extremely efficient.

We worked on the creation of a new primary french curriculum at first, based on the Collins Primary French Starter Pack, and the 5-14 Guidelines. We wanted it to be easy to access for pupils, making it not only fun, but also instructive.

For the kids to see the progress they made in their learning of a foreign language, we piloted Assessment is for Learning, including posters with the Learning Outcomes clearly displayed and Modern Languages passports for them to record their progress in.



First, we started by working on the Collins Pack, analysing the different strands of 5-14 and from there seeing what was to be added to the pack to make sure we covered everything. This work has been very useful for feeding back to SMT and HMI.

Then, we had the brilliant idea to do the same exercise with the Métro 1 and Métro 2 books, and realised that most of the first book was a repeat of the Primary curriculum.

So what was the point of doing the whole curriculum again? May as well just jump straight on Métro 2 when the kids arrive in S1!

The idea seemed crazy at first, but we did some calculations: P6 and P7 pupils get 1.5 hours of French a week, and our S1 get 3 hours a week, so within 2 years, the Primary kids have covered all of the S1 curriculum, apart from the third unit (school), which could be started in the 3-day visit in June and continued in August, in the first few weeks. A good way to ease the secondary education to the new S1!

We also quickly realised by working on the Access 3 guidelines, that after completing all the Métro 1 and 2 assessments, the pupils have completed an Access 3 course! Always a good certification to get at the end of S1, to motivate pupils and to make sure they do not leave the school without a diploma for Modern Languages.

All of this work has also been done for German, using Logo 1 and Logo 2.

To make it easier for Primary teachers to deliver the lessons or to do a follow-up session after our visit, we created teaching plans, including all the resources needed, for both French and German. However, these teaching plans are being worked on in order to include units about home, the bedroom and town for the P7. We also are working with the science department on an environmental study unit for P7 as from Christmas.We also will still need to work on assessments, to give the P7 pupils an appropriate 5-14 level when they arrive to us, since we cannot use the Métro assessments without breaching copyright.



The project was very successful, and now, with the arrival of Curriculum for Excellence, we are well on our way, without having to panic about changing the curriculum for Modern Languages.



Almost four years after we started this project, we can see a big difference in the attitude of our pupils towards Modern Languages. All our kids have an Access 3 for Modern Languages at the end of S1, our exam results in S4 have improved, and both pupils and teachers are having more fun than ever in their school experience. So much so that we managed to get a S3 class to sit their Standard Grade French exam a year early, do Higher French in S4 and an S2 class to start a second language in order to sit their exam in both French and German at the end of S4.